Fools Like Me
by Guardian-381
Summary: Laila decides that the time has come to be honest with Noir. Pre-canon.
1. Her Side of the Story

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Gorgeous Carat. "Fools Like Me" is the title of a song by Vanessa Carlton, which had a hand in inspiring this story.

Fools Like Me

"I love you."

She had spent weeks preparing for this moment, rehearsing every possible variation of it in her mind. The paste jewel in her turban had been polished to as bright a sheen as it would ever hold, and graced her head in stark contrast to the rest of her worn, everyday clothing. More importantly, though, she had steeled her heart to the inevitability of his refusal, and taught herself, as best she could, that she had to hear it if she was ever going to be able to exorcise, and thus survive, her feelings for him.

And yet, despite all of these preparations, she was nowhere near ready. She wasn't prepared for the deafening silence that followed her admission, and when his gaze slid up, so slowly, from the pages of the book in his hands, it was all she could do not to retract her statement, to recant like a heretic faced with the stake. _As a brother, I mean! As a dear friend! Oh, wow, that came out so wrong… _And of course, he would believe her, or at least pretend to, either of which would be enough for them to lay her foolishness to rest with an uneasy laugh and an implicit pact to never mention it again.

It would be so easy, and so wrong.

She waited the eternity that it took him to close and set aside his book without flinching. By the time their eyes finally met, the initial desire to flee had given way to a fatalistic dread, and she forced herself to breathe, to swallow, to continue functioning until, finally, he spoke.

"I know," he said.

The ease with which he spoke these two obviously-deliberated words testified not only to the fact that he had misunderstood, but that he had done so consciously, in order to give her one last chance to back out. _It's what he wants_, the part of her which wanted nothing more than escape nearly shouted, but she stood fast, clinging to the honesty of her feelings as though it would be some sort of talisman against the gathering storm.

She loved him too much to betray him, even if he himself had asked it of her.

"No, you don't," she pressed, and as weak as they were, the words shattered the thin veil of delusion he had offered them. She watched this loss pass over his face, watched his good humour fade into hardness, and felt like crying.

In that moment, she absolutely loathed herself.

"Why?" His intonation was midway between that of a question and a demand.

"I wish I knew," was her only reply.

He looked away, and his face twisted into a grimace as he rose from his chair and turned away from her. The swirl of his robes tore through her like a desert sandstorm. "What do want me to say?"

"Nothing." It was true; she hadn't gotten that far in her fantasies.

His robes spun again as he turned back to her. "What do you expect from me?"

"Nothing," she repeated.

"I can't…" His inhalation was nearly a gasp, and when he met her eyes, she could see the storm in his eyes, the mirror image of that which raged within her. "You know nothing can ever come of this."

"Yes." And she did, under the infinitely powerful and perfectly useless burden of her hope.

"Then why mention it? Why not keep your mouth shut?" He shuddered, so shallowly that she could barely catch the gesture. "Why did you have to… change everything?"

"Nothing has to change." She caught herself taking a half-step forward, and took a full step backward to compensate. "I just…" Something sparked inside her, very briefly, just long enough for her to say, "I was sick of hiding. I was sick of lying to you."

The full darkness set into his eyes then, and she wondered how he lived with such a beast raging inside him. It was, she decided in the next instant, evidence of his inner fortitude, and her respect and admiration for him surged, bolstering the calmer waves of her love exponentially. "How selfish of you," he all but snarled, and yet she remained unmoved.

Even if he struck her next, she knew, her feelings would not falter.

But, of course, he did not; the darkness began to recede, and he turned away from her again. "Leave me."

"But--"

"Leave me," he said, in the same perfectly modulated tone. "I can never return your feelings, and if you continue to nurture them, you will only be hurting yourself… and I care too much about you to let you do that." She let the apparent contradiction pass, and waited the few seconds it took for him to speak again. "We never had this conversation. As soon as you leave, it will be forgotten… erased."

"You know that's impossible." She did take a step forward then, but only one. "Even if I leave, and never mention it again… I can't change the way I feel. I can't just forget that I--"

"Don't say it again." His voice was quiet, but she had never been able to ignore his commands. It was in that moment that she consciously knew that he would never want her as a woman, and she fought to snatch as many precious minutes of composure as she could from the despair that threatened to engulf her. It would not do to break down in front of him, to give him any excuse to categorize her as just another simpering woman, valuing his power and protection over his heart.

Fool though she was, she could not stand the thought of him believing her that stupid.

"Alright," she said, embracing the capitulation that, she was now aware, would be the defining response of whatever relationship they had left tomorrow. "I'll do as you say; I'll leave you alone, and I won't mention it again." When he did not react, she continued, a bit shakily, "But don't think for a moment that I feel any differently. Don't think, even for a second, that I could ever stop loving you."

"Get out," he whispered, his voice nearly broken.

She did, and as soon as the door was closed between them, she slumped back against it and waited for the tears to overtake her. Surprisingly, however, all she could manage were a few heaving, almost forced sobs; her eyes were as dry as the desolate wasteland of her heart, and the numbness that came with this realization terrified her.

Then, he locked the door behind her, and the finality of that simple _click _shocked her almost to the point of devastation. She could not imagine ever breaking free of the paralysis that followed in the wake of the numbness, and she stood frozen there until she knew that one more minute in her personal purgatory would drive her insane.

Only then did she shuffle forward, and then only because she could do nothing else.


	2. His Side of the Story

Dedication: For Arwen, who asked for a trip through the looking-glass. Enjoy!

* * *

"I love you."

At first, he sincerely thought that he had misunderstood her; her voice was low, and he had been engrossed in his book. It was entirely possible that she had said something different from what he had heard, and though he had nearly convinced himself of the likeliness of this scenario, he still had to force himself to tear his eyes from the safety of his book, and look at her.

Some part of him had known in advance just how completely the expression on her face would shatter any attempt on his part to deflect not only her confession, but also the feelings associated with it.

He waited there, the book still open in his hands, and let her twist in the proverbial wind as he tried desperately to collect himself, to sort out the tumult of emotion that had greeted her words. There was shock, certainly; a bit further down, and more complex for the distance, there was annoyance. Beneath those two, there was a vague slash of something not unlike regret, and he closed his book, fighting the urge to sigh.

"I know," he said, trying to steer her toward this last, desperate means of recantation.

She would, however, not be moved. "No, you don't."

Part of his composure evaporated under the pressure of knowing that she had crossed the point of no return, and his expression hardened over the wound, as his instincts demanded. "Why?" he asked, more harshly than he could recall ever having spoken to her.

"I wish I knew," she said, as though she didn't.

Another of his carefully-formed mental barriers cracked, and his ability to keep his expressions under control crumbled along with it; he felt his lips twist into a grimace as he rose from his chair, and he turned his back to her, perhaps out of some lingering, misguided urge to protect her feelings. "What do you want me to say?" he eventually managed.

"Nothing," she replied.

He turned to face her again. "What do you expect from me?"

"Nothing," she repeated.

"I can't--" He inhaled sharply, and nearly choked on the rush of air. Even as he fought to get himself under control, he could feel his inner darkness rising, could almost see it flash through his irises in his mind's eye. "You know nothing can ever come of this," he managed, and though his tone was level, it was clear to him that he would not be able to hold himself back much longer.

"Yes." He heard resignation in her deadened voice, and was furious at the thought that she had known his answer in advance, that she might have spared them both this awkwardness, this idiocy, this… betrayal.

"Then why mention it? Why not keep your mouth shut?" A fresh wave of emotion, too jumbled to decipher, passed through him, and he shuddered. "Why did you have to… change everything?"

"Nothing has to change." She began to advance, then wisely backed away, restoring the distance between them. At least she was not yet too idealistic to forget how dangerous he could become. "I just…" A strange quality, a sort of second wind, entered her voice. "I was sick of hiding. I was sick of lying to you."

_I was sick of hiding…. I was sick of lying… I, I, I. _He allowed himself to glare at her, allowed his grip on the darkness' leash to slacken, if only a bit. _What about me, and my feelings? Did you ever consider them? Did you ever consider what you'd be throwing away if things turned out this way, and I couldn't return your feelings? How dare you put me in this position?_ Each of these points, and more besides, hovered in his throat, ready and waiting to be given voice; instead, however, he simply said, "How selfish of you," and the words carried with them the combined force of his rage and, less prevalent but still present, his disappointment.

She said nothing, and he turned away from her in disgust. He could no longer bear the sight of her, and the darkness had already begun to recede, with his strength bleeding into its undertow. "Leave me," he said.

"But--"

"Leave me," he repeated, and was almost surprised by how businesslike his words had become. "I can never return your feelings, and if you continue to nurture them, you will only be hurting yourself… and I care too much about you to let you do that." He took a breath; she made no attempt to speak again. "We never had this conversation. As soon as you leave, it will be forgotten… erased."

"You know that's impossible." He heard her advance, more steadily this time… or perhaps just that much more desperately. "Even if I leave, and never mention it again… I can't change the way I feel. I can't just forget that I--"

"Don't say it again." To hear her confession a second time would be to court madness.

He could sense how very torn she was, and tried to take comfort in the fact that this struggle to obey him could be interpreted as evidence that she did still care about his feelings, that she wasn't nearly as selfish as she seemed. "Alright," she finally said, and he knew that she had surrendered. "I'll do as you say; I'll leave you alone, and I won't mention it again." She paused. "But don't think for a moment that I feel any differently. Don't think, even for a second, that I could ever stop loving you."

"Get out," he pleaded, and his own weakness stung his heart in much the same way that the rising bile stung his throat.

Once she had left, he stood very still, trying to restore order to one of the few aspects of his life that, until tonight, he had believed would remain secure, preserved from upheaval. He began to realize how much he had come to rely on her soft, self-effacing presence, how accustomed he had gotten to her wanting nothing for herself, how easily he had taken her low-maintenance nature for granted and, by extension, disregarded her essential humanity.

Perhaps the sin of selfishness was not exclusively hers.

He crossed the room in a daze, and though he fully believed she was gone, he locked the door anyway. The act of sealing the world outside was comforting, and he sighed in equal parts frustration and relief as he sank into the chair he had occupied a mere few minutes ago, when all had been right with the world. He considered the ways in which this exchange might affect their relationship; he wondered if there was any way to forget about it, to sweep it under the rug and dance around it, as though it weren't there at all. Most importantly, and most bitterly, he wondered how he would go on without her unconditional support, how their partnership could survive if he couldn't help hunting for an ulterior motive in each of her seemingly-innocuous glances, or seemingly-selfless favours.

There was, however, no persistent doubt in his mind that he would carry on. It would be difficult, yes, but life had taught him nothing more completely than how to cope with privation and disappointment. He would be fine on his own, just as he had always been.

Her feelings, on the other hand, would just have to take care of themselves.


End file.
